Ron Paul? What are your thoughts?

michaelsuede said:
I do not find coercive violations of property rights amusing.

I feel sorry for you if you think such things are humorous.
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In another thread, you say that all taxation is evil.
Please explain how such basic things as A Police force, a court system, etc are going to be paid for except by taxation.
 
DavidJames said:
I am amused by and find the utterings of adherents to the religion of Libertarianism to be humorous.
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To be fair, many Libertarians admit that some government..and therefore some means of Taxation...is necessary.
But the Anarcho Captalists are just plain kooks.
 
Of course it isn't necessary, everyone that wants to pay for police and military protection can make personal donations of what they think is the appropriate amount.

 
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gnome said:
Of course it isn't necessary, everyone that wants to pay for police and military protection can make personal donations of what they think is the appropriate amount.
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Everyone would presume that the other guys will pay and therefore they don't have to......


Pure Libertarisim is like Pure Communism: Human Beings are the wrong species for it to work.....
 
Ron and Rand are both wierd. Ecconomicly, they are anarchocapitalists, but socially they are meddling puritans.

I think they let their religion get too much in the way of what they thionk is good for America.
 
michaelsuede said:
I think Ron Paul is the only one who does understand economic theory.
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The Austrian "school" is to economics what astrology is to astronomy.

michaelsuede said:
Violations of private property rights do not lead to beneficial outcomes.

Therefore Keynesianism is flawed at its core assumptions.

In order for Keynesianism to operate, it assumes that groups of people have a right to violate the property rights of other groups of people by using coercion.
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One hardly needs to endorse Keynes to reject Paul and his Austrian nonsense although I wouldn't expect a Paul fan to know that because none of you know a damn thing about economics. Most economists recognize that Keynes made important contributions to the discipline but there has been a lot of work done since his day. A standard view would be a combination of Keynes' fiscal policies and Friedman's monetary views with a general favoring of free markets.
 
michaelsuede said:
Sure.

Keynesianism assumes the government has the legitimate authority to engage in monetary stimulus and interest rate adjustments.

In order for the government to be able to accomplish these tasks, it by default, must have a monopoly of the money supply.

1. Coercion is necessary, through the implementation of fiat money laws, to force people to use the currency that government can then manipulate.

2. The manipulation of the money supply, through the "printing of money" by increasing debt levels, is tantamount to counterfeiting.

Counterfeiting itself is a violation of all money holders property rights, because the value of the money is stolen from all money holders. Those who get the new money first have "stolen" the value of those who get the new money last, since newly printed money still has the same value as the old money until it is spent into the economy.
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You might want to learn what counterfeiting means and also look into monetary policy, the advances there largely come from Milton Friedman, hardly an opponent of individual liberty.
 
dudalb said:
To be fair, many Libertarians admit that some government..and therefore some means of Taxation...is necessary.
But the Anarcho Captalists are just plain kooks.
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All libertarians recognize that some government is needed. Regardless of the merits of libertarianism, they are not anarchists.
 
Any good idea Ron Paul might have is completely tainted by the fact that he's a doctor who denies evolution. He's either willfully ignorant or pandering.

And thinking of that son of his..reminds me of The Dead Zone...
 
respect said:
All libertarians recognize that some government is needed. Regardless of the merits of libertarianism, they are not anarchists.
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Not according to this guy:

http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-socialism.htm#anarchosocialism

Libertarianism (left)
"A political philosophy calling for as much self-government for individuals as possible. Opposes all forms of hierarchical authority (particularly those associated with capitalist companies and the state) and social inequality in favor of group direct democracy, individual liberty and social equality. This would be accompanied by either no government or government reduced to a minimal level." (7)
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This FAQ explains how libertarian socialists are anarchists:

http://anarchism.ws/faq/secA1.html#seca13

For anarchists, libertarian socialism, libertarian communism, and anarchism are virtually interchangeable.
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Apparently, the original libertarians were anarchists. Today, libertarianism has a new meaning (aka Ron Paul's version).
 
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I like his views on non-interventionist foreign policy and I generally like the idea of spending less, but not to the degree he advocates.
 
This may be of interest. Ron Paul appeared as a guest on the TVO current affairs program The Agenda. The episode aired on Wednesday of this week.

I only caught this when it was rerun later in the evening, and only watched about five seconds of the interview (I didn't really have the intestinal fortitude to watch the whole thing), so I can't vouch for how good the interview is.

The video of the interview is up on the TVO web site. You can find the episode page here. Click on the "Ron Paul: Come Home America" tab to go to page with the video of the interview.

I can't vouch if the video will play for those outside Canada, but give it a try. For those who do watch the interview, feel free to post the highlights (lowlights) of the conversation. :)
 
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